


The Claim of Memory

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:44:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While collecting his belated birthday present from Ron, Harry discovers a memory that he didn't know he wanted to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Claim of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Written 12 March 2008.

The trade in Memory Globes flourished after the war. It seemed that everyone wanted to share certain memories with their family and friends, and Memory Globes, although expensive, weren't a tenth of the expense of Pensieves. Besides, the inventor of the device worked quickly, and he had been advertising his wares unceasingly since setting up his shop in Diagon Alley not long after the first anniversary of Voldemort's defeat.

A Memory Globe held one memory in a crystal ball with a flat bottom that was affixed to an applewood base after the memory was inserted into the Globe. The inventor of the device, a man called Sebastian Pince—and anyone who had attended Hogwarts who had met him would have confidently said that the resemblance to the librarian was true—assisted his customers in memory retrieval and then created the seal upon their Globes in under a half hour. His shop was open ten hours a day, four days a week, and he sold eighty Memory Globes per week at a price of ten Galleons each.

"Eight hundred Galleons a week, Harry, can you believe it?" Ron asked, not long after Harry's eighteenth birthday. "It's a bloody fortune!"

"Then why'd you give me the certificate?"

"Don't you like it? Everyone's getting a Memory Globe these days. I thought—"

"It's not that I don't like the idea, Ron," Harry lied. "It's just that you're saving your money, and this is a great unnecessary expense."

Ron frowned. "You ought to let me worry about that," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Training pay isn't much, but I—"

"Sorry," Harry said, sighing.

The two friends, on a break from Auror training, were in Diagon Alley that morning to look at the new shops that had sprung up in the past year and to have Harry's belated birthday gift made, but Harry was nervous about it.

_One memory. What memory could I possibly want to_ —

"So, do you know what you'll put in your Globe, yet?"

"Ron, do you think you might want to have something 'Globed'?" Harry asked, smirking at him.

Ron flushed. "Belt up," he said, somewhat defensively. "If Hermione knew I'd told you, she'd have my sac for a sewing kit!"

" _Ow_."

"Indeed," a gravely voice said, behind the two of them. "You would be Messrs Weasley and Potter?" the speaker asked, as if he had never heard of them before.

Harry and Ron turned to see a tall, wiry, ginger-haired man—his hair hanging down one side of his neck in a thick cascade—staring at them impassively.

"Hullo, sir. You must be Mr Pince," Ron said, offering the man his hand.

Shaking it, he said formally, "At your service," before favouring Harry with an expectant glance.

"Oh, er, nice to meet you," Harry said, although he didn't offer Mr Pince his hand.

Something was off about the man, something upon which he couldn't put a finger.

A quick glance up and down Pince's form, however, got Harry to thinking, _Not that I'd mind_ —

His entirely inappropriate thought was interrupted as Mr Pince cleared his throat and stepped past them to open his shop. "Do come in," he told them, casually flicking a hand toward the heavy curtains covering the front windows to cause them to pull back. "Now then, do you understand, Mr Potter, what we're about to do?"

"Oh, I er, I guess. I think of a memory, pull it out, and then you put it into the Globe?"

"And do you know what you'd like to archive? Given your . . . experience, I imagine that the choice is a difficult one."

Harry blushed.

Mr Pince turned to Ron. "Mr Weasley, memory selection is often tedious. Perhaps you might give Mr Potter some time to think about it while you visit the shops."

"You mind?" Ron asked Harry.

_Yes_ , Harry thought, not wanting to be alone with Pince. "No, not at all. Er, come back in an hour?"

Ron was already out the door.

"I thought you saw people on the half hour?" Harry asked, wondering where everyone was.

Ron had told him that Pince's shop was always full of customers.

"It's two hours before I usually open, Mr Potter. When I sold Mr Weasley your certificate, I had a feeling it might take you some time to decide and requested that he bring you along early."

"Oh. Thanks."

Pince nodded. "Tea?"

"Sure."

With a gesture of his head, Pince led Harry to the back of the shop and through a door into a cozy sitting area. The kettle was already whistling.

"Never could get the hang of household charms, myself," Harry said, his nervousness, despite the pleasant surroundings, increasing.

"I've never cared for house elves and live alone, so I've learned to do for myself. Do sit," Pince told him almost sharply, and a shiver ran down Harry's spine as he obeyed the man.

" _You_ don't see it, do you?" he asked, without meaning to.

"The memory?"

Harry nodded, accepting a cup of tea from Pince, who then sat down, himself.

"No."

Perversely, the odd familiarity of the sharpness of Pince's tone made Harry's cock stir. Casting about for something to say, he came up with, "Um, so, would dreams count as memories?"

"You wish to archive a fantasy?"

Harry sipped his tea, feeling like an idiot.

"It's been done, of course."

"Oh, well then, perhaps . . . no. Honestly, I don't want to offend Ron, sir, but I really can't think of anything to 'archive'."

Pince smirked. "Perhaps you're too much a gentleman?"

"How'd you mean?"

"It would be indiscreet, archiving a fantasy about your young lady."

Harry couldn't help it; he groaned. His fantasies about Ginny had been few and far between for weeks. It was _Snape_ he couldn't stop dreaming of, but he wasn't going to tell the git sitting across him that.

"Forgive me."

"No need, really. I, uh, I guess I just need to think about it, is all."

Pince smiled. It didn't look right on him.

"So, how long does my certificate last, then?"

"For you, indefinitely."

Harry set the cup down in its saucer. His hand had begun to shake. He didn't know why.

"Perhaps you'd care to see the orchard, Mr Potter?"

"What?"

"The orchard from which I draw my wood," Pince said, his gaze intensely focussed on Harry, which did nothing to ease his nerves.

Harry found it difficult, as aroused as he was—and as much as Pince was rubbing him the wrong way—to know how to respond. He didn't want to leave, but he wasn't sure he ought to be Apparating off with the man.

_Especially given that Ron won't know where we've gone_ , he thought, setting aside his cup and saucer and rising to his feet.

Pince seemed to take his rising as an affirmative answer, and, standing, himself, led Harry back into the shop and towards the counter. Behind the tapestry hanging behind the counter was another door.

"It is a direct link to the orchard. I've altered the frame into a Portkey, you see."

"Wow," Harry replied, momentarily forgetting his mixed feelings about Pince. "That's impressive."

"Perhaps. There's not much call for this sort of thing, not as yet."

Harry snorted. "I guess an inventor's real job is to encourage demand."

"Indeed," Pince said, opening the door and stepping through it.

Harry started. The space within the frame looked like a still, dark pool. _Almost the colour of his eyes_ , Harry thought, tentatively breaching the surface of the "water" with his left hand. "Oh!"

Another hand clasped his and pulled him through.

Harry found himself falling forward into Pince's chest and blinking in the bright light. Stepping hastily backward, he said, "Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"It's all right, Potter."

_That's it. He reminds me of Snape_!

"I imagine it was something of a surprise, travelling this way."

"Er, yeah."

"Well, this is the orchard. If you look behind you, you'll see the portal to my shop is in this tree here. You may return whenever you like."

As Pince moved to step through the tree-portal, Harry said, "Wait. You're not staying with me? I mean, I like trees and all, but—"

Casting his gaze to the placket of Harry's trousers, Pince replied pointedly, "I thought you might prefer your privacy."

Harry, staring wide-eyed into Pince's own, wished the ground would open up to swallow him.

"I don't believe that you're wishing that the _ground_ would swallow you," Pince declared, taking one step towards Harry.

"Who . . . who are you?"

"Sebastian Pince, who else?" Pince said, taking another step closer.

The hairs on the back of Harry's neck rose at the liquid hoarseness of Pince's voice. "Look, I think you've got the wrong idea about why—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Harry felt something snaking up his legs and smelt the strong scent of apples; it was intoxicating and made his head swim.

"Wha—"

With Pince following him, he felt himself being dragged backward until his back hit a tree behind him and the stems—the impossibly thick, smooth stems of the apple tree that was, equally impossibly binding him to itself—pulled his legs apart and drew his arms up around his head to hold him fast. Spread-eagled and alarmed, he found that he couldn't protest. It wasn't possible to protest something that was making him harder than he'd ever been, even if he was scared, even if he thought that the smell of apples might have something to do with what he was feeling.

Pince stopped moving just close enough for their chests to touch, and the slight pressure made Harry moan.

"You're doing this to me," he whispered, unable to look away from Pince's gaze.

"You're doing it to yourself. My orchard is responsive to the needs of those who enter it, and you entered it of your own free will."

"N—not true! You pulled me in!"

"A tug, to help you along," Pince said, pressing himself more firmly against Harry's body.

Harry moaned to feel the hardness of Pince's erection rubbing against his own.

"That's not a protest."

"N—no, it isn't," Harry whispered, attempting to thrust his hips forward.

"And _that_ wouldn't make much of a memory," Pince chided, stepping back.

The warm air of the orchard played over Harry's suddenly exposed skin, and, even though Pince appeared to blur before him, Harry could see that he was still clothed.

"As I told your friend, memory retrieval is often tedious—but it doesn't have to be. Tell me, what was it that you wished to archive? What fantasy? Surely you must have some idea."

"I . . . I didn't have . . . I didn't ask for your help!" Harry exclaimed, shaking his head. "I don't want to—"

"Liar," Pince replied, one fingertip rubbing lightly over the smooth tip of Harry's erect prick.

"Oh . . . ."

"Tell me, what 'don't' you want?" Pince asked, his sarcasm practically hanging between them as a visible cloud.

The "cloud" smelt of apples.

"I . . . please, just—"

Harry couldn't finish his thought, not with Pince slowly stroking his prick. He whimpered, tried to thrust again, felt his bollocks begin to tighten—and then felt the slither of stem twine itself around and between his balls and tighten.

"No! Want to . . . want to come!"

"As I said, that wouldn't make much of a memory," Pince replied, his voice low and maddeningly calm. "Be still."

"But—oh! Fuck."

Pince slapped Harry's prick, once, twice, and then withdrew his hand and its clever, warm fingers.

"You'll do as I say, I think, if you want to come by my hand, or would you prefer my mouth?" Pince asked, leaning in to pinch both Harry's nipples at once.

Harry shouted.

"Mmm, as much as I should like to hear you, I think," Pince said, reaching upward, "that you should earn the privilege. Open."

Harry's eyes widened in shock. He knew it was an apple hovering before his face. He knew what Pince intended to do with it, too. He didn't know, however, why the prospect made his prick weep. Squirming against the tickle of his own pre-come as it dripped down his shaft and slid into his arse, he opened his mouth. Staring into Pince's oddly sharp eyes, given that the rest of him seemed to be shifting and changing—his hair had gone dark, for one thing—Harry thought, _Please_ , and bit down upon the apple.

Pince's hand returned to stroking his prick, which throbbed almost painfully, bound as it was, and all Harry could do was squirm pitifully and breathe heavily through his nose because he found he couldn't dislodge the apple.

In his ear, Pince whispered to Harry, "You like this, being stilled and stroked, knowing that I won't permit you to come unless I desire it, don't you?"

"Mmrphm!"

The stem around Harry's bollocks tightened further, and he felt the condensed air forcing itself out of his nose onto his apple run down its sides to dampen his cheeks.

Pince struck his prick again, and abject lust was all Harry could feel—until the stems binding his legs loosened and he felt them jerked upward; there was a strange creaking sound as smooth branches twisted under his knees and the stems wrapped themselves around his legs and held them fast, leaving Harry's arse spread and open for Pince's examination.

Breathing in and out quickly, turning his head from side to side as his skin hummed with desire, Harry attempted to bite through the apple but found that he couldn't. "Mmmrrrr!"

Pince made a sound that might have been a laugh, and Harry felt it vibrate through his body, heating him further, despite the ripple of unease that went crashing down his spine and into his balls.

"Has anyone ever touched you here?" Pince asked.

Harry stopped breathing abruptly as a thick thumb penetrated him and began to rub itself deeply inside. He couldn't help himself; he began to struggle violently, so violently that apples began loosing themselves from their stems and striking him. Every pelt of the fruit was a pleasure.

"Pain, you like that, as well," Pince murmured. "What's made you such a little masochist, Mr Potter?" he asked, as something wooden and rather more scratchy than the other restraining stems "bit" into his nipples. "Oh, yes. That will do nicely."

_Why are you doing this to me_?" Harry pleaded with his eyes, which were rivetted to Pince's gaze.

"Because you're allowing me to."

With those words, Pince dropped out of sight, and the next thing Harry felt was the withdrawal of that welcome thumb, and a tongue— _A tongue_!—pushing into his arse.

He was shaking so badly he thought he might pass out, but it was good, so good! The velvety hot wetness that was probing the folds of his arse was amazing. Prick as rigid as it could possibly be, bollocks taut, skin flushed, Harry was sure he'd die of the pleasure that tongue was causing, die from not coming, and he found himself mentally begging, _Fuck me, Snape. Please, please, please—fuck me_!

Pince's tongue withdrew.

Harry bit down into the apple, pushing the piece he'd taken out of it and the fruit, itself, away with his tongue. "No! Don't stop! Please, fuck me!"

As if from far away, Pince's voice demanded, "Who did you want to fuck you?"

"Snape! I want Snape!" Harry shouted, realising then that tears were coursing down his cheeks. "I need it to be Snape!"

The stems binding Harry's body withdrew, but the ones around his balls remained, as Harry shakily removed one quivering leg and then the other from the branches over which they'd been resting and rushed after Pince's retreating form.

"Please! Don't leave me! Don't—"

Pince turned around in time to catch Harry up into his arms and hold him still. "Severus Snape is dead. You left him to die well over a year ago!"

"I . . . I know! I know, and I'm sorry," Harry said, unashamedly weeping. "I'm sorry. I thought he was g—gone, dead! I thought—I'm so sorry! Please, please, I want that. I want to remember him fucking me! Please," Harry pleaded, collapsing, awash with grief and arousal, to the ground.

Pince followed him down, murmuring something, and then Harry's mind exploded with pure white as he felt Pince's mouth sucking his prick into his throat at the same time that the stem around his balls unravelled and the ones clasping his nipples fell away.

"FUCK!"

Harry convulsed through a second orgasm as Pince shoved his thumb back into his arse and roughly massaged his prostate, biting his way up Harry's body to his mouth to claim it as he did so. He couldn't think under the onslaught of Pince's tongue; he could only feel, and it was the most painful, all-encompassing pleasure he'd ever known—until consciousness left him.

~*~

"—Potter?" a quiet voice asked. "Mr Potter, are you quite well?"

Blinking, Harry awoke to find himself in Pince's sitting room, slumped into his chair, and drenched in sweat.

"Your Memory Globe is ready, Mr Potter," Pince said, holding the object in question out to him.

"It . . . it is? But I don't remember—"

Pince smirked. "Memory retrieval is often an . . . intense process. Finish your tea," Pince instructed, as Harry took the Globe and clutched it to him, gasping as it grazed one sore nipple. "It wouldn't do for you to become dehydrated."

"Did . . . you take me . . . to your orchard?" Harry asked, his throat dry.

Pince, whose hair was just as darkly ginger as it had been upon their meeting, raised his eyebrows. "Did you dream, Mr Potter?"

"I, uh, I guess I did."

"Drink your tea. I've another customer waiting, but you may remain as long as you like."

Mortification spread through Harry as he reviewed his "dream," and he knocked his tea cup off the little table next to his chair once Pince had left the room. _What the hell's_ wrong _with me_?

Without even trying to answer himself, Harry, still clutching his Memory Globe, Disapparated back into the street and ran until he was at the exit to Diagon Alley that led to the Leaky Cauldron, where he hastily booked a room from Tom and threw himself down upon the bed.

When he was breathing normally again, he got up and stripped off his kit, examining himself in the ancient, cracked mirror that sat in the corner of his room. _No marks_ , he thought, hissing as he touched his sore nipples and looked from his chest to his wrists to his legs. _No marks_ , he thought again, as he wriggled against the sensation of near-fullness in his arse. "Merlin, what was in that tea?"

As if in answer, a light swelled in the dark room, and, turning, Harry saw that it was emanating from the Memory Globe on the bed. He froze. The light pulsed again, but this time, it did so in time with his prick.

Swallowing heavily, Harry slowly lowered himself to the floor until he was sitting cross-legged, and then he hung his head and cried.

"I . . . I wanted . . . I asked for . . . Snape. But, but _why_?"

He'd felt guilty about leaving Snape in the Shrieking Shack for months, but he hadn't realised just how guilty.

"Guilty enough to let the first man who reminded me of him use me however he liked," Harry murmured, "and it's all in that. Damn. Globe!"

Without thinking about it, and completely unprepared for the force of his emotions, Harry mentally lashed out at the Memory Globe, which exploded in a shower of glass and splinters—and then, serpentine, the swirling mist of his "memory" slithered over the edge of the bed to the floor, and then across the floor towards him. Too stunned to move, Harry watched in horrified fascination as the mist floated over and up his body to coalesce before his eyes.

"Wha—"

Once he'd opened his mouth, the mist darted, snake-like, into it, and then everything Harry had experienced at Pince's hands flooded his mind in crystal-clear detail, and he knew, he saw—it hadn't been some stranger with him in that orchard; it had been Severus Snape.

Harry could feel Snape's hands on him again, feel his lips and teeth and tongue—feel everything he'd done to him as if it were happening again, and the spasms of yet another and then another orgasm shook him before he lost consciousness.

~*~

Harry awoke to yet another orgasm; he couldn't stop coming, and, alone and writhing, he began to wordlessly call for Snape: _Severus, Severus, Severus_! _I need you, please—I need you, Severus_!

Stroking himself and gasping, the scent of apples and ozone tang of Apparation reached him.

"Do you have any idea how hard I am just seeing you this helpless, this desperate, this desperate for _me_?" what could only be Severus Snape's voice asked. "Fuck. Potter. You do. You do want me," Snape practically growled, and Harry, nearly out of his mind with the sensation of the enforced and unending orgasms crashing through him, crawled across the floor towards the sound of Snape's voice.

"M—make it stop! Please, Severus, make it, make it—oh, fuhhh!"

Harry came again, but, at the same time, felt himself being picked up and thrown, face down, onto the bed. Through his gasps, he could hear the sound of clothing being torn, and then he was jerked back roughly, his arse slickening under what he knew was Snape's silent command, and then impaled on Snape's cock.

"Idiot boy! You . . . weren't . . . supposed . . . to break it!" Snape said, in between tortuous and welcome thrusts. "You were always . . . too . . . careless . . . to—oh, Mer—Ha—"

Wet warmth, almost scaldingly hot, flooded Harry, who moaned and whimpered and pushed back into Snape with every last ounce of strength he possessed—utterly spent, he did not pass out, because now Snape's body was lying next to him, now Snape's arms were drawing his body back into his, and the idea that he was being spooned and held and kissed by Snape was too astounding to sleep through.

"Stupid . . . arrogant . . . ridiculous . . . gor—gorgeous . . . idiot."

Harry laughed weakly. "Too dehydrated . . . to argue—but no more . . . no more . . . tea."

Snape grunted. "No more tea."

"Hell of . . . a way . . . to get an . . . apology," Harry continued, fighting for breath.

The only answer Snape gave was to tighten his arms around Harry and bite his neck.

An aftershock of pleasure coursed through Harry, and, this time, it was too close to pain. "No. No more. Please."

"As you like."

"I don't know that I liked any of that," Harry answered, curiously unable to summon any anger at his treatment by Snape.

"Liar."

"You're one to talk about lying."

"Yes, that, too," Snape whispered.

"What?" Harry asked, as exhaustion spread heavily through his limbs and his eyes began to droop.

"Yours."

"Wha—"

"And mine, as well, it seems."

_Oh_ , Harry thought, stunned. "Oh, that's—"

"It just is. Accept it."

Harry forced himself to roll over so that he was looking at Snape, whose eyes, Harry was surprised to find, held _fear_ in them before he looked away. "No. Look at me," Harry demanded, a cool ripple of near-déjà vu shivering through him as Snape did. "Severus."

"Severus is dead."

Harry sighed. "Sebastian, then."

"Wh—what?"

"If you're gone when I wake up, I _will_ find you."

"Harry."

"I'll find you, 'Sebastian'. I'll find you and kill you, myself. Clear?"

"Crystal."

Harry smiled, satisfied, and closed his eyes.

"It . . . it wasn't the tea."

"Yeah, I know," Harry said, accepting the lie because he knew that Snape wasn't going to leave him. _Not after all that_. "Going to need a new Globe, to show Ron."

"Done."

"No, guess not. Didn't know, really."

"Neither did I."

Harry felt the light, careful kisses on his eyelids as he replied, "Liar."

"The 'dead' don't lie."

"Glad they make memories, though."

"Are you?"

"Yeah," Harry said, his thoughts blurring one into another, as exhausted as he was, "I am, 'Bastian."

" _Don't_ call me that."

"As you like," Harry lied. "Forgive me?"

"Yes."

"Good, 'Bastian, because I forgive you, too," Harry murmured, allowing sleep to claim him, as well.


End file.
